Warning: No TV May Cause Major Projects

Apparently our household communication system was not working. The standing under the open stairwell yelling, "Kids! Dinner!" was insufficient, unclear and would not do. Now we have a telephone and a messaging system between the 1st and 2nd floors. Designed with a pulley system (1 basket, 1 long string, 2 toilet paper rolls), we can now pass notes to each other in blissful quiet. Here's Ethan with the basket pulley system for notes and the new telephone, installed and ready.




And here's Evelyn receiving the note.

And she can also talk on our "Sliced Peaches Telephone." It's the latest thing in telecom.

This is how it works:
Ethan tells Evelyn to go downstairs because he has a note for her. She goes down the stairs and waits patiently while Ethan writes a note, puts it in the basket, and lowers the basket down.
Mom helps Evelyn read the note.

"Come upstairs, I have a surprise for you," it reads. And Evelyn comes back upstairs. It works like a charm.

Alternatively:

Ethan puts a note in the basket and lowers it down but no one notices because we're all outside. Feeling impatient, Ethan comes downstairs, goes outside, finds Mom. "Mom, check the basket for notes," he says, and goes back upstairs to wait.

"Mom, please send up my iPod," says the note.

I insert iPod, pull basket twice to notify that there's something in it and he pulls up. It's really quite the efficient means to get things communicated around here. I might as well cancel T-Mobile and unplug our Internet service.

We'll Always Have Paris...

Only 6 hours drive away, we spent the last weekend in Paris...


The weather called for rain all weekend, but instead it looked like this. Perfect weather for walking all over this beautiful city. Having studied French for 7 years was not a lot of help... most of the time my new German kept sneaking in and I corrected myself all weekend. (Of course, after getting back to Germany, I spent the last day converting all my "ouis" and "mercis" to "jas" and "dankes."

Instead of renting an expensive hotel (400 Euro/night= $500 dollars), we rented an apartment in the city. And while hotel rooms sleep 3 at most, we had a 2BR plus loft, much more room for less than half of the price. It was in Le Mouffetard, an area full of restaurants and great shopping. Each door has a specialized vendor behind it for cheese, wine, sweets, bread, meat, fish, etc. Most restaurants don't start serving dinner until after 7:00pm, so instead of dealing with tired kids, I would stroll the street and put together dinner from each of the vendors, and we'd eat in peace at the house.

Here's the courtyard, walled behind the busy street, leading to our apartment.




Since it was Ric and the kids' first time, we focused on hitting the highlights:

The L'Arc de Triomphe on the Champs Elysees.


La Tour Eiffel:
We waited on a line that snaked through this plaza for a mile, but only for about an hour before reaching the elevators. We went to the top floor and then walked down from the second floor, way below.


The view from the top of the Seine River:

Picture taking by Ethan:

Lunch at Le Louvre. Home of the world's most expensive cheeseburger (18 Euro=$25) and world's smallest/most expensive salad: 4 Romaine hearts on a dessert plate (12 Euro = $15). Yum.




Whatever!! We snuck Evelyn hard boiled eggs and apples from underneath the table when the waiter wasn't looking and quietly fed the boys peanut butter sandwiches so that we'd only have to order two things ;) And instead, we figured we'd paid for the view:

We had to whiz through Le Louvre, vowing that Ric and I should return without kids so that we can actually look at all the art instead of near-sprinting from The Mona Lisa to Winged Victory to Venus de Milo, but c'est la vie. We said it'd be a tour of the highlights.

Then a trip through Notre Dame in the late afternoon. Unbelievably beautiful.

We also took a bus tour of the city and a boat tour from the Seine River. And spent one day at a children's museum and a picnic at a large city park.


On the ride home, we took the scenic route and stopped in a lovely town on the French/German border to see an old castle and the accompanying Birds of Prey show with Eagles, Vultures, Owls, and Falcons.

View of the French countryside from the hill at the castle.


The kids might say that the best part of the weekend was getting to watch cartoons in English!! Bugs Bunny, Tom and Jerry, and Scooby Doo, all the classics. With no TV at home this was a real treat.

And a view of the living room. There is actually a couch behind the stairs, but we usually kicked the kids off of it so heavy afternoon napping could occur.

A very very fun and beautiful weekend.

Happy Mother's Day to Me

Alex's class had a presentation for all the Mother's on Mothers Day. They had a whole collection of their original works of art and poems, all for little 'ole me. After the readings, the kids served the moms all items of pink refreshments. Evelyn mostly stared at me wondering why I kept tearing up about my Little Guy. It was such a fun afternoon and so special for Alex and me. Thanks Alex, for loving me the sweet, sweet way that you do. I love you too Little Guy.

Baseball Season

Baseball season is in full swing here. Ethan has been catcher most of the season, with occasional breaks to play shortstop. He's having a great time and playing really well. I'm happy to see that the league here is not so competitive as the Colorado Little League (yet), so there's still a lot of instruction for the "developing" players. And Ethan is a bit of a stand-out since he played LL last year and learned to keep up with the really good players there. And the weather here is not so wintry as it was in Colorado last year, so it's nice to get out with the dog and play around the ball park while we watch the games.



Stay-tuned. This weekend: Paris!

Heidelberg, Germany

We spent a perfect day in Heidelberg with Ed, visiting the Heidelberg Schloss. A real vision of what a working castle must have looked like, it was large enough to house a theatre, a church, a dry moat, and beautiful gardens surrounding. With not enough money to restore the castle from destruction, they have left the sections which had been destroyed from a civil war between the Protestants and Catholics, the 30 years war with the French, and a 4 day fire. They merely maintain the castle as it is.

Ed stands atop the larges wine cask in Germany. It holds 57,000 litres of wine. This is where the local farmers brought their wine to the King when the paid their taxes. The mix of many different wines was obviously quite yucky so they added spices and boiled it... the precursor to the modern-day German gluwein.

Wilkommen Deutschland, King Edward the III

Our good friend, Ed came to visit from Baltimore, MD. We go way back to the days BK when there were many fun nights in downtown Bal'mer at Nacho Mama's and Loonie's in Canton, not to mention pickin' crabs in Fell's Point. Ed's wife and I worked together for 3 years for the state of Maryland and Ed is an Army reservist here for 3 weeks on his annual duty. He's in Weisbaden, we're in Stuttgart, so we met in the middle at the great college town of Heidelberg, home of the first university in Germany, founded sometime in the 1600's... only Cambridge is older.

In honor of Tam, we found the only Irish pub on the walking street in Heidelberg, The Dubliner.

Happy May Day

May 1 is May Day here and a big German holiday. All the German schools are closed and everyone is off work. The night before is something of a "Goosey Night" where the kids go out late and spray shaving cream everywhere, throw toilet paper, and do "tricks" on people. One small truck near our house (it's so small it only has 3 wheels) was picked up and physically moved to the middle of the street during the night.

Anyway, Evelyn's Kindergarten was closed so we spent the afternoon with friends in the schloss in town. It's walking distance and was a beautiful day to be out for lunch with my favorite little girl.

Here she is, not roasting marshmellows, but schtockbrotbaken (stick bread baking). She (I) held her stick over the fire and baked her own bread. Some people (the typical thrifty Swabian), brought their own bread and their own stick to roast, rather than pay the 2 Euro ticket.



And then we had lunch at a cafe down from the schloss. The entire menu was just coffee, cordials, and dessert... but we managed to eek out a lunch of tomato soup and strawberries.
Her drink is an apfelshaftsorle... apple juice with bubbly mineral water. She always orders this and never drinks it because it's too bubbly... good luck around here finding flat tap water. It doesn't exist.

Evelyn and Gabe have and Eis after lunch.


And here's a view of our town of Waldenbuch from our walk back home. We live on one ridge, there's another ridge across from us and the town sits down in the valley.

Happy Easter

Happy Easter... yes, yes only 3 weeks late! Here's some photos...